Teachers and pupils writing alongside each other

28.11.2015: NWP MK is at the Higgins Gallery in Bedford. We are visiting the Turner exhibition. We each choose which painting to sit next to - and we write our responses in 15 minutes. Phoebe, aged 12, chooses 'Coast near Dover' (see below).

Standing next to the painting, Phoebe chooses to read us her writing:​​The misted horizon sweeping over the grey crested sky above. The tattered sails pulled out into the unknown waters of the deep blue. The shades of the ocean much reflected that of the sky beneath the clouds: cyan, white, tinted white, grey, dark blue, light blue, tinted blue, navy. The white cliffs of Dover, watching over the sea, awaiting the return of the long gone sailors. The tears of every loved one another were deep within the soil of those gazing white cliffs. Little life was seen on the cliffs of Dover as blood and tears do not suffice as food for the fresh new life. Barrels tumbled on to the boat as young men clambered on, anxious to find out what lay beyond the horizon, what mysteries the deep blue had to offer. Tears were dropped and kisses left as the sails were once more pulled out into the unknown. Curiosity had again gained the higher power over common sense as four more lives were dragged to the sea bed below. Souls were left to an eternity of scrambling for their loved ones, desperately trying to swim back to shore. But the white cliffs of Dover watched on as there was no sign of their return.

We talk about what we like about Phoebe's writing - the colours she's seen, the persona she's created for the cliffs, the resonating expressions - 'pulling out into the unknown' - and her quick invention of human toil, love and loss beneath the impassive cliffs.

Then we read the blurb accompanying the painting, 'Coast near Dover':Painted about 1793-1797 Turner visited Dover in 1793-4 with his friend and artistic rival, Thomas Girtin ... It has been suggested that the cliff in the distance is Shakespeare’s Cliff, named in honour of its mention in King Lear.

A teacher chooses to sit next to Turner's painting of 'Norham Castle' (see right) and to write the following and to read it out:

'Gouache'. 'Some gouache'. 'Watercolour, pencil and some gouache'. You can see the impasto, the pastiness in the whitening of the clouds in the sky behind the silhouette, the near silhouette - the filmy, translucent watercolour blues - Prussian, ultramarine with hints of ochre - in the silhouette of Norham Castle. Norham Castle on the border of Scotland and England.

And why was Turner here - perched, presumably, on some hillside with his sketchbook - and later, in his studio, with his tubes or blocks of paint, his waterpots, his brushes, his mixing trays, his palette - and his gouache - in 1798?

Not just because of the romance of the place, not just because of the peaceful rural idyll - the rustic cottages to left and right, the cows in sunlight at pasture, or standing, drinking in the lake - and not just because Edward Viscount Lascelles, his early patron, had commissioned Turner to be here - but because 'the war had closed off Europe'.

1798: the battle of the Nile - Nelson, our man from Norfolk, out-manouevring the French fleet off Alexandria. 1798: aristocratic blood still warm on the streets of Paris - heads in baskets, corpses still unburied, a republic on the rise - and the terror, the pure terror, running like electricity into every town, every quarter, every home, and even and especially those homeless and destitute in St Denis and Montmartre, in St Etienne and Orsai - dans les banlieux ou les ouvriers fachent le gouache - where the workers make gouache.